In this blog post, Pravesh Naveriya from RDVV, Jabalpur, talks about the process to get your FIR quashed.

A law is made for the benefit of the people. A law is made to protect people and especially the ones which have been suppressed by the dominating ones. The law tries to fill the gap between the dominating and the dominated. The laws are made keeping in mind the interest of all the people but there is a special consideration for the weak and suppressed people. There are number of laws which very clearly indicates that they have been made for the benefit of one or two specified classes of people. The examples of these are a long list which includes the harijans, women, minorities etc.

There are people who uses these laws which have been formulated for their support to blackmail innocent people in order to get some money or fame. There are a number of examples in which a person uses the law in order to blackmail or force someone to do something which he is not interested in doing. For this reason, the lawmakers have made certain laws to protect those innocent people from the misuse of these laws. The FIR or the First Information Report which has been lodged by the police after the complainant made a complaint can be quashed or can be made void if it is lodged illegally.

An FIR can be quashed by the High Court if the court is convinced that the person is innocent and has been falsely implicated. A High Court can quash the FIR on the ground that the case is a false case and will ask the police to set the aggrieved person free if he has been arrested.

Compoundable and Non-Compoundable Cases

There are two types of offences specified in the Indian Penal Code; these are compoundable and non-compoundable cases. This have been classified on the basis that whether the parties are free to settle the case among themselves outside the court or not.

• The offences which can be settled by the parties outside the court are classified as Compoundable offences.

• The offences which are not allowed to be settled outside the court are known as Non-Compoundable offences.

• The offences in which the lawmakers thought would be better that the competent parties settle the case within themselves by giving the victim a particular amount of compensation or damage for the loss which he has suffered are classified as compoundable offences.

• There are offences in which there is no amount of money or asset which could compensate the loss occurred, those offences are not allowed to be compounded or settled between the parties themselves and the court itself is the only authority who has the power to deal with the case.

• A compoundable offence can be compounded only and only if both the parties have given their free consent to the decision and no one can force a person to compound a particular compoundable offence.

• A person who has been accused of committing any non-compoundable offence and against whom an FIR has been registered can approach the court and ask the court to quash the FIR if he has been implicated falsely and illegally and there is evidence that not even prima facie any offence is made out against him or that there are glaring irregularities that makes it implausible for him to be convicted.

Suggested Reading: How to File an FIR

Inherent Powers of High Court

The Code of Criminal Procedure has under Section 482 explained the inherent powers of the High Court.

• Section 482 of the code specifies that a High Court has got the power to act in any manner in order to make the two ends of justice meet.

• Under this section, a High Court can quash an FIR if it thinks that the FIR which has been lodged is a false one and was done with the sole motive to defame and trouble the aggrieved person.

• If any person has been implicated and accused of a non-compoundable offence then he can approach a High Court and file a Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Indian Constitution read with Section 482 of CrPC.

• The burden of proof is on the petitioner to prove that he FIR has been lodged only for malicious reasons and to trouble the petitioner.

Article 498-A and Quashing of FIR

• The most common case in which a High Court uses its power is the case of Dowry Harassment and Section 498-A (domestic violence).

• Some women use this as a tool to pressurize the in-laws or husband and filing of false cases is rife.

• The aggrieved person can approach a High Court and request the court to quash the FIR as it has been lodged with the only purpose to defame or trouble him.

• There have been many cases in which an appeal was made to the Supreme Court of India that a particular offence FIR cannot be quashed or it is not under the jurisdiction of a High Court to quash it, responding to this the Supreme Court in all the cases has very clearly specified that Section 482 of the CrPC gives the High Court this power and it cannot be questioned.

• The High Court can use its inherent powers to quash an FIR of any offence in which it is satisfied that it was required to do so.

Conclusion

The laws have been made to make sure that no one is suppressing anyone and if someone is then he shall be punished. But there are a number of circumstances in which a person uses these laws which are favouring him to trouble innocent people.

To tackle this the lawmakers have given the High Court a power to quash an FIR if they are satisfied that it was lodged with the only motive to trouble the person and there is no need to continue the legal proceedings against that person.

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